


Lucky Shirt

by Brumeier



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Attraction, First Meetings, Laundry, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 05:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14586354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: Steve lost his lucky shirt, but maybe the guy he bumped into in the laundry room has it.





	Lucky Shirt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nagi_schwarz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/gifts), [SherlockianSyndromes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockianSyndromes/gifts).



“Oh! Sorry!” Steve apologized, even though the other guy had bumped into _him_.

His laundry basket had hit the floor but only a few of the clothes on top fell out. The other guy lost a whole armload.

“My fault,” the guy said, and knelt down with Steve to scoop up the wayward clothes.

Steve glanced up and immediately found himself spellbound. He knew he came across as a little absent-minded a lot of the time but, in reality, his artist’s eye was caught up in the details. Like the guy’s beautifully long lashes and wide, luminous brown eyes. In his mind he was sketching them, mentally choosing just the right pencils to recreate each lash, each curve.

“Hey. You okay?” The guy waved his hand in Steve’s face, and Steve blushed.

“Sorry,” he said again. He finished tossing his clothes back in the basket and left.

It took him an hour to realize that he’d gained a pair of silk boxers emblazoned repeatedly with E = mc2 but was missing a shirt. Not just any shirt, either, but his favorite work shirt. It had started life as a plain white tee, but three years later it was splattered and smeared with every color of paint under the sun.

By the time his roommate returned from class, the entire room was covered in Steve’s wardrobe, hastily tossed from the closet and the dresser.

“Tornado?” Sam asked. “Or robbery?”

“You think someone stole my shirt?” Steve asked. He was behind the dresser, which he’d muscled out of the way. All he’d found was a flyer for a campus band and one of Sam’s socks.

“What shirt?” Sam dropped his backpack on the floor and swept Steve’s clothes off his bed so he could sit. “I see plenty of shirts.”

“You know. My painting shirt.” Steve moved his hand in front of his chest. “It’s not here.”

“That was a two-dollar shirt, man. Just buy a new one.”

“No. I need that one.” Steve pushed the dresser back in place. “It’s my lucky shirt. How else do you think I got that scholarship?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Um, hard work? Being a kick-ass artist?”

Steve knew it was the shirt, which his mom had given him. One of her practical gifts, because they couldn’t afford luxuries. That shirt was imbued with the heart and soul of his craft, carrying the remnants of every failure and success he’d had. Sam wouldn’t understand.

“You did laundry today, right? Maybe you left it there.”

Steve smacked himself on the forehead with the heel of his hand. The laundry room! Of course! He must’ve dropped it when he and the guy with the eyes collided.

“I’ll see you later,” he said to Sam. He grabbed the silk boxers, stuffing them in the front pocket of his cargo pants, and left with Sam protesting loudly about the mess he was leaving behind.

The shirt wasn’t anywhere in the laundry room. Steve checked every machine, every garbage bin, every space a shirt could possibly be stuffed into. And then he rousted Mel, who was on laundry room rotation that day, which meant it was her job to dispense laundry detergent and fabric softener sheets because people kept breaking the dispenser. She also kept a lost and found box behind the counter, which she produced when Steve asked her.

“Damn. It’s not here.” Steve slumped against the counter, his head on his arms. “This is a disaster.”

“Maybe Tony picked it up,” Mel said. She was reading a German edition of _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_ ; Steve surmised as much from the picture on the cover.

“Tony?”

“You guys literally ran into each other earlier?”

“Do you think these are his?” Steve pulled the silk boxers out and held them up with one hand.

Mel looked up and stifled a laugh. “Probably. I think he’s some kind of science nerd. Pretty hot for a nerd, too.”

“Do you know where I can find him?” If he had Tony’s boxers, Tony probably had his shirt. Steve really, really needed that shirt.

“Off campus. I think he has a place in The Tower.”

Steve whistled. The Tower was an apartment building, really high end, with a doorman and everything. What kind of college student lived in a place like that?

“Thanks, Mel.” He shoved the boxers back in his pocket.

He caught the campus bus into town and walked three blocks to The Tower, a shiny glass-and-metal construction that caught the midday sun and, according to the article Steve had read about it, stored all that solar energy in special fuel cells that powered the entire building. It was very environmentally friendly.

The doorman was also very friendly, his lips twitching up in a grin when Steve explained the mishap and pulled the boxers back out as proof. He called Tony and got permission to let Steve go up. 

“Penthouse,” the doorman said.

 _Penthouse_? Tony’s family must’ve been millionaires or something. As Steve rode up in the elevator he wondered why a rich kid who lived in such a fancy building was doing his laundry in the humid, dingy campus laundry room. He’d really been slumming it.

The elevator opened on a small entryway that had one door. Steve knocked hesitantly, and it immediately swung open. There was Tony, the same guy with the eyes. He had a big smile on his face.

He was wearing Steve’s lucky shirt.

“Uh…”

Steve’s mind short-circuited again, but this time it was the whole picture. The eyes, the wide expanse of white teeth, the strong chin, the way Steve’s shirt was just tight enough to accentuate Tony’s shoulders and chest, and the bare feet poking out of a pair of well-worn jeans.

“You found me,” Tony said cheerfully, snapping Steve out of his reverie.

“You’re wearing my shirt,” Steve replied. He sounded like an idiot. “I mean, uh…”

Tony reached over and pulled the boxers out of Steve’s pocket. “But you’re not wearing these. Well, there goes that fantasy.”

Steve blushed. “You mean you did this on purpose?”

Tony leaned against the door frame. “Of course I did. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get your attention, Picasso? You always have a paint brush behind your ear and your nose stuck in a book or a canvas or a sketchpad. Desperate measures needed to be taken.”

Steve tried to process that. Rich, handsome Tony had been trying to get noticed? By skinny, absent-minded Steve Rogers? Stuff like that only happened on the Hallmark Channel. 

“I’d really like to paint you,” Steve blurted out.

Tony’s eyebrows went up. “Like one of your French girls? I wouldn’t be opposed to that, but maybe we should get to know each other a little better first. You wanna come in? I was just making lunch.”

“If you’re sure you don’t mind.”

“Just get in here, Bob Ross.”

Tony stepped back and held the door open. Steve stepped into the penthouse, but instead of looking at the luxurious furnishings and killer view, he only had eyes for Tony.

“That’s my lucky shirt, you know,” he said.

“Something tells me it’s going to be _my_ lucky shirt too,” Tony said, waggling his eyebrows.

Steve was laughing as the door closed.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** This ridiculous fic is for my good friends nagi_schwarz, who gave me the scenario as I was on my way to do laundry (I wrote half of this at the laundromat), and SherlockianSyndromes, who is a big Stony fan. Five deadline fics this month, and _this_ is the story my muse wants to run with. ::shakes head::


End file.
